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Beloved giraffe dies at Kansas’ Topeka Zoo

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TOPEKA, Kan. — A Kansas zoo is mourning the death of a beloved giraffe.

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According to KSNT, the Topeka Zoo announced that Abi, a 9-year-old reticulated giraffe, died Sunday morning. The news came as a monthslong radiograph study was tracking a possibly cancerous tumor in the animal’s front left leg, the zoo said in an Instagram post.

“After consulting with numerous experts in the field and considering Abi’s quality of life, zoo officials made the difficult decision to euthanize her,” the post read. “Histopathology is pending to determine the type of tumor that was in the joint.”

The post added that the giraffe “will continue to make contributions to science.”

“An MRI will be done on the tumorous joint to see what additional information can be gained that might help other giraffe with similar situations,” the zoo wrote in the post. “An MRI will also be done on her brain and contribute information to an ongoing research study that is trying to determine why giraffe don’t have strokes in hopes that the information can help improve human health.”

Abi, who had been at the Topeka Zoo since 2015, originally came from New Mexico’s Albuquerque Biological Park. In 2018, she welcomed a calf, Konza, who was relocated to the Wildlife Safari in Winston, Oregon, the zoo said.

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